toronto internet marketing for your small business
There are various aspects that make up Internet marketing. The main areas will be touched on below. These techniques and strategies can dramatically improve the bottom line of your Toronto small business. The Internet is one of the most cost effective ways of generating new business for your organization.
Search Engine Marketing
The first aspect of Search Engine Marketing is Search Engine Optimization. SEO involves creating Web sites that rank well in the non-paid search engine results. This is a cost-effective way for Toronto businesses to promote themselves and their products and services. In addition, leads generated from search engines are highly qualified as the customer is actively searching for a solution to their problem. While there are numerous techniques that should be employed to rank high in search engine results pages, the three main aspects are as follows.
- Content: The content on a page of your Web site should be focused and contain the phrase that you wish to rank for. The best strategy is to have separate pages of your Web site contain content that is optimized for each key search phrase that you wish to rank for in the search engines (i.e. one optimized page for each keyword).
- Title Tags: The title tag is what appears (for the most part) in the search engine results pages. The title of your Web page should contain the phrase(s) you wish to rank for as it corresponds with the specific page. If your Web site has only has a Toronto customer base, you will want to include 'Toronto' in your title tags and page content.
- Inbound Links: Search engines like Google consider Web sites that have quality, relevant inbound links to them to be of higher authority and therefore ranks them higher in the search engine results pages. Thus, it is important to have other quality and relevant Web sites linking to your Web site. There are a number of techniques to do this, the best being having content on your Web site that others find valuable.
The above points are moot if you are not aware of what people are typing into search engines to find the solution that your Web site provides. Use of keyword research tools can help in this regard. On this point, also take into account the competition that you will face for each phrase that you find people are searching for. In many cases you may be best off to focus on lesser searched phrases as you will face less competition, thus improving your chances of ranking higher. If you run a local Toronto business it's best to run these keyword research searches on both a generic (non-local) and local ('Toronto ______' for example) level.
The second aspect of search engine marketing is Paid Search. Paid search involves paying to be ranked higher in search engine rankings (among the paid ads section of search engine results pages). Companies bid on phrases they wish to rank for and are ranked (in the paid ad section) according to the bid price, relevancy of their landing page, and usually other aspects as well (click-through rate, etc.). Local Toronto businesses that are only trying to reach customers in the Toronto area will want to make use of the geographic targeting options that paid search services provide. This allows your paid ad to only be shown to those in the Toronto area, thus not wasting money on driving people to your site who are not quality leads. To create paid ads for the major search engines, use the following services:
Each of the above listed services also allow you to display your ad across their network of sites that display content ads. Search engine paid ads tend to convert at a higher rate than content ads however, as the user is more proactive to finding a solution to their problem when using a search engine.
Local Toronto businesses should also add themselves to Google's Local Business Center which allows a free listing to appear in certain search results (displayed in a mapped format).
Online Advertising
Besides search engines, there are many other options to drive traffic to your Web site from online sources. Many Web sites sell advertising directly, while others rely on an ad network to deliver and fill their advertising inventory. Most of these purchases are on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions) although some may still offer CPC (cost per click) advertising as well.
Affiliate Programs
One of the most cost effective ways to drive traffic to your Web site is by running an affiliate program. An affiliate program allows other Web sites to display your advertising, upon which they are paid only when an action of some sort occurs. This action can take various forms, depending on the situation. Many are simple revenue share scenarios (the affiliate is paid a percentage of the revenue that was brought in from users they referred). Other affiliate programs may pay on a CPA (cost per action) basis such as a sign up. Others still, although rare, may pay per click. In each scenario the advertiser does not pay unless some action has occurred. Advertisers can set up and run their own affiliate programs in house using various packages that are available, or can join service that includes their program as one of many under one roof.
Other Internet Marketing Options
There are other, more non-conventional, ways to drive traffic to, and awareness of, your Web site. Things like creating viral videos and engaging in social media marketing are a couple.
To get your Toronto small business started in marketing online please contact Fred Moesker (), who can help you with all of the above aspects of Internet marketing.
|